Melas are huge intercultural events, rapidly becoming an established artform. Lisa Kapur offers an analysis of the sector and looks at some of the challenges facing Melas.
Melas have been establishing their place within the UK cultural landscape for almost 20 years, making an impact in well over 30 towns and cities across the UK. In fact, wherever south Asians have settled around the world, Melas have become increasingly prominent within the cultural calendar. One of the biggest European Melas is in Norway and there are several large events that take place in North America.
Family friendly
The word Mela derives from the Sanskrit word for gathering. In the Asian sub-continent, Melas are traditionally held as community events, which can involve dance, music, fashion, food and sometimes film. They can also be trade fairs and large religious gatherings. In the Western context, Melas have evolved to become celebratory arts and cultural events, incorporating performance and art elements as well as commercial, sporting and culinary aspects. There is often a strong community representation, along with the programming of performances and events appealing to a wide range of tastes. The age and audience range of attenders at a typical Mela is often wider than one would see at many other arts events.
Even the smallest Melas tend to attract thousands of people and often take place in outdoor urban spaces such as parks. Thus, they are a highly visible celebration of south Asian culture, yet they often still lack profile and visibility on a national or international level. There have been few, if any, explorations of Mela as a cultural phenomenon within the national mainstream press, and Mela has only been explored on a fairly superficial basis within academia.
Ownership
Melas are a means of raising the visibility of diasporic cultures in Western countries. On the whole, Melas aim to represent traditional Asian cultures, along with the new cultural forms emerging from the British Asian identity. This is all contained within an inclusive format, which can also act as a vehicle to showcase the cultures of a huge variety of minority groups, from African drumming and Irish dancing to Russian puppetry. But the way in which they do this can often be open to interpretation who decides what gets represented and how?
Few Melas have the luxury of an artistic director, and programming is often undertaken by committees which can lead to tension between generations, who often want to see a different kind of programme, or between individuals representing different community groups, who want to ensure equality of representation. Therefore, the programme may not always represent the vision of one individual and may lack coherence.
The ownership of Melas is often a complex mixture of local authority and voluntary community group involvement. Some Melas have gradually developed from small-scale community-based events to large-scale celebrations, but the fact remains that most (even the larger and more high profile events) are still heavily dependent on voluntary input.
Melas originated as community- based events, often only presenting forms that harked back to the Asian subcontinent. Nowadays, though, Melas increasingly aim to reflect the complexity of new cultural forms within their programming, but often have difficulty raising arts-based funding because of the lingering perception with funders that these events lack sophisticated programming. In some cases this is true, and some Melas need to re-examine or even create their artistic policies. But this should not ignore the fact that many would appreciate the ability to commission new work and be ambitious in their programming if they were given the resources and capacity to do so.
Community challenge
There are many challenges. Among these is the issue of the professionalising of Melas while maintaining some sense of community ownership. There are some signs that, where arts professionals have engaged sensitively with Melas around governance, policy, programming and event organisation, progress is being made that benefits the wider arts sector. Conversely, there are examples of the consequences of insensitive intervention. Arts professionals should see this growing sector as one with which they can connect to strengthen their own practice while offering their expertise to these emerging activities in their communities.
The European Mela Network (EMN) has been set up to address some of the issues highlighted above. We want to ensure that Melas have a strong network to learn from each other, support each others development and share information and resources. EMN wants to provide training for Mela organisers and help to establish a more secure infrastructure, including making recommendations on governance structures.
EMN has an important role to play in disseminating information on the value and impact of Melas across the UK and Europe and raising the status of Mela within arts funding structures and the business community, contributing to an increase in the overall amount of funding generated for Mela activity. EMN aims to encourage ambitious programming amongst its members, including the creation of co-productions and co-commissions, and the development of coherent artistic policies across the board.
Lisa Kapur is Development Manager of the European Mela Network. To find out more about Melas in your local area, across the UK and Europe, go to
w: http://www.melanet.eu